Gujarat Titans skipper Hardik Pandya won the toss and opted to field against Kolkata Knight Riders in the Indian Premier League 2023 match at Eden Gardens in Kolkata on Saturday.
KKR in-form batter Jason Roy will miss the match due to a back issue and Rahmanullah Gurbaz will replace him. Harshit Rana would play in the place of Umesh Yadav for Kolkata. Gujarat will play with the same playing XI as in the last match.
KKR are placed 7th position in the points table with three wins and five losses, while GT are in the third spot with five wins and two losses.
Gujarat Titans skipper Hardik Pandya said their first aim is to qualify for the playoffs.
“We will bowl first. Just because of the weather, it was bright when we came and we thought we should bat, but it has changed now. I’m pretty happy with where we are, 7 games gone, 7 more to come, we need to play good cricket and qualify for the playoffs. We will learn from the losses as well, but we just need to play some consistent cricket. We are playing the same team.”
Kolkata Knight Riders skipper Nitish Rana said they have had to make some forced changes.
“We would have batted first, DLS could come into the equation, but we would still have batted first. There are always areas where we can improve, we have had some forced changes – Jason Roy has a back issue, he’s replaced by Gurbaz. Harshit Rana replaces Umesh Yadav.”
Gujarat Titans (Playing XI): Wriddhiman Saha(w), Abhinav Manohar, Hardik Pandya(c), Vijay Shankar, David Miller, Rahul Tewatia, Rashid Khan, Noor Ahmad, Mohammed Shami, Mohit Sharma, Joshua Little.
Kolkata Knight Riders (Playing XI): N Jagadeesan, Rahmanullah Gurbaz(w), Venkatesh Iyer, Nitish Rana(c), Rinku Singh, Andre Russell, Sunil Narine, David Wiese, Shardul Thakur, Harshit Rana, Varun Chakaravarthy. (ANI)
